DCUO clearly dead...

This is the kind of respond I expect from you. You have literally nothing constructive to say so you resort to pictures. Try to focus for a few seconds and try to use words in a constructive way. Please explain where you got the 17k peak number from?

Yeah, that's nice. Developers do things to keep games around and even dedicated players to those very communities gain client access to open up private servers after some games are shut down in order to prolong activity of the little that's left. We all know that story.

You're right, we don't need to crunch numbers to determine whether or not a game has a healthy enough player base. Sometimes, you can actually see that with your very own eyes upon how populations looked in the past vs how they do now. The number crunching just shows further proof of such claims.

Funny thing is, if DCUO had such a strong player base, how is it that a particular phase which was once upon time the most populated can be a complete ghost town? How is it that players among other platforms or regions are begging for servers to be merged due to the fact their respective player bases are struggling to the point where it nearly forbids them to run the content they need? Or, how about DCUO's ranking of 71st among active MMO player bases? Which is pretty bad.

You see, such results wouldn't be a thing if DCUO actually had a "strong" player base. It's one of the weakest on the market. So, what are we talking about? I understand that everyone in here loves DCUO. Even me, although it's more so a love/hate relationship at this point. I just don't care for deluded perspectives that deny what has happened in terms of population over the years. Our beloved DCUO is only doing enough to keep its head above water.

This is where we see that a DLC is needed in this period to motivate people to play otherwise during the summer if there is nothing people will either play elsewhere or at the beach etc

Is the game at a lower population than any 'peak' it ever hit? 100% yes.
Is Steam a terrible indicator (positive or negative) of population? Yes...a little less than 100%, but yes.
Do I debate that many people have left the game that I'd have said were 'die-hard' players who'd never quit? No....it is indeed happening every day.

So I'm not 'defending' anything....I personally play less now than ever, mainly just collecting daily rewards and generally hit it hard 1 day a week to knock out weekly items and maybe the raid.

My question for you though is, whether the game is 'dying' or 'strong', and everyone will have their own opinion on that....something that we'll never have ANY hard numbers on unless DI decides to give them to us (and realistically....if they did, I'd guess some people would debate their authenticity)....so what?

If the game is dying, let it die. IF it's doing fine, keep playing...or don't if you don't want to. Why do you have this need to convince and argue your point....a point that you can't really prove any more than someone could prove (without DI's numbers) that it's doing 'great'. And you have to admit many, MANY people have made the same claim for years, citing similar 'evidence'...yet, it's still here.

Now, if they decide to launch another 'lifetime' sub offer....that would require probably 3 years longevity to 'pay' for itself...well, then the 'is it dying' question would really matter....maybe even for those who are looking at a 1 year sub. But for month to month or F2P players....who cares? Play if you want....quit if you don't.

SIDE NOTE: When the last lifetime offer came out, I weighed the 'will it be around for 3 years' question for my main PC account (I was subbing till this Jan)....mainly because of threads like this. As it turns out, I decided incorrectly and kept paying for a sub.

And that's why we shouldn't use steam data as a long-time trend, that's what everyone on this thread is saying yet you are bringing it up to support your arguments. The official data contradicts steam data, which means steam is not representative of the population and cannot be used as a sample. It's not even "it does not account for us in every platform", it's just that it is only representative of a very small % of the minority of players (PC), that in the long term have most likely started playing on the PS4/Xbox/Switch, has they became reliable platforms (Unlike the PS3 that was a much worse experience than PC). It might have some value to see ponctual fluctuations that happened in recent years (Like RwC's immediate drop in population or the pandemic surge) but not long-term.
I used them on the past and have been proven wrong by Mepps and official data, maybe you should learn with your mistakes as well.

The official numbers were provided both on the forums by Mepps (Saying that both OC and Pandemic were near the game highest numbers) and on a Investor note that follows US regulation rules and thus can't have false numbers (If you think the numbers are fake then you need to prove it or it'll be considered a false accusation agains't the company). I even posted the slide above.

You said the numbers were from steam, yet they don't exist anywhere there. Even on Steam the difference between now and 2014 (When the game was supposed to be dead, just like 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2023) is pretty negligible.

I think that people have different meanings of what "dead mmorpg" means. For some people it is same literally as dead which is same as canceled and no longer accessible game. For other people it means very low population.
This game has gone through few different "dead mmorpg" phases. At first all servers merged per region and per console (PS/PC). After that game went F2P and yet after that they merged PS and PC players. So the game or atleast portion of it have been very close to dead. Those kind of changes are not made for fun.
As a EUPSPC player i have seen when game was basically dead as unplayable without active league. Now the newest changes made it better and more popular than in years.

Occam's razor time. The company that owns Daybreak, the Swedish company Enad Global 7 as a holding company owns companies and IP's based on their return. If DCUO were truly as dead as you said, I'm fairly sure they wouldn't hesitate to shutter it. I can assure you they won't sit on a game for sentimental reasons. The IP is certainly valuable, and if the game were dead, they would sell the rights to that.

The game isn't dead.

Oh so those 500 players Tolly said that "dropped" were probably yours? Well that's it, if Reinheld ain't playing on his 1000 alts every day we better call DCUO over RIP. Lol jk of course

I for one am tired of the "DCUO is dead" topics. This game is 11 years old, and since about 2014 about a dozen people have been posting "DCUO is dead" or "DCUO is dying". Yet it's still up and people are still playing it 11 years later. I just wish they would update the engine to Unreal 5 as the graphics are now dated. But no, the game is not dead or dying yet...

They do need to stop with the routines when it comes to episodes. I mean stop reusing old content, and the common cycles of missions with no surprises, etc...

Well if the active player count is 600....yeah....I make a dent.

That's all I do, Reinheld. Simply acknowledge the changes within the game that we have witnessed over the years. I notice some of these forum members in here didn't come into the game until the latter half of its lifespan. Players like that are not going to view such changes the same way as those of us who have been here since the near beginning. Why? Because they haven't seen it for themselves. And, their word becomes invalidated in a sense because of it. Population-wise, 2011 DCUO looked WAY different than the little we're seeing now here in 2022. We don't need Steam numbers to gauge that because we lived it.

To answer your question, I'm always going to make the fairest assessment in terms of how I view the state of the game. I'm not one of these individuals that will loosely say or claim that the game is "dead." Which is why I always choose to jokingly say that the game is on life-support. But, if we're going to get technical, I would much rather say that the game is within an endangered state. Without the official data that shows us the whole entire picture, we can draw that conclusion based on how player experiences are hindered through lack of activity among certain areas of the game. The very reasons why there's lack of new player retainment or why players among other platforms outside of ours are begging to have a server merge. Like I said already, healthy or strong MMO populations will not go through that.

I'm never going to be that guy that comes in these forums to sugarcoat and pretend the state of the game is greater than what it truly is. I have an appreciation for the game just like everybody else in here. Or else why would I be here? I'm simply honest with myself in regard to how I go about acknowledging its flaws. And, you have to address those things. Because if we don't, we'll never see the necessary changes that will allow DCUO to live up to its fullest potential. After 11 years, we're still not there. So, I won't give praise that's not deserved. Especially, when there are similar products on the market that do for their communities what simply hasn't been done for us here.

It's never my intention to come in here to argue. I simply respond and react based on what's directed my way. That's fair right? You want to have a reasonable discussion? Let's have a reasonable discussion. You want to try to badger me in a debate because you're that upset and appalled someone has something negative to say about your favorite video game? Cool, I can do that all day. Sometimes that's just what it turns into. And, I get villainized because I won't highlight the sunshine and rainbows. Crazy. But, if you're going to ask me that, you should ask everyone else the same question.

At the end of the day, I just want to see better for DCUO. I once took a 3.5 year hiatus because I despised the direction I started to see the game to go. Yet, upon my return all of that took its course having driven too many players away. Some things are just unacceptable, and I can't buy into that mindset as if everything's perfect when it's not. You can only remain optimistic for so long; you know?

At this point, all you're doing is repeating yourself and stating the obvious. I've already addressed that I very much understand that Steam data doesn't tell the full story. Whether you say "it doesn't account for us on every platform" or "it's representative for only a small percentage" it's the same damn thing. Which, is why I never care to look at such numbers. But, here we are talking about it as it was the focus through the OP. All while still contradicting what's been said by others of changes in population. No, mistakes here. You misinterpreted my perspective.

About that official data, I've told several on this very topic it's the information that I personally want to see. Everything from January 11, 2011 to now. But, no one ever reveals it when I ask for it. Where's this slide you're talking about? If you're referring the EG7 presentation, then that showed us similar trends to what Steam has shown, lol. Also, it's not like companies haven't lied about such numbers before. But, I'll digress there and give them the benefit of the doubt for now.

Don't care what numbers you did or didn't see. Enough has occurred over the years to warrant significant changes in the player base to have put DCUO in an endangered state. Don't believe me? Ask those guys from Xbox, Switch, and the EU region how they're doing.

I'm not adept to conspiracy theories, if you dont believe their MAU Metrics are representative of reality you can prosecute the company for faking the numbers on a public, investor relevant note.

If you cant say from where the 17k number comes from I will just assume you were hallucinating, which is a behaviour that can happen to any of us and I will not judge it.

I dont need anedoctal references to sustain my point. Different servers and platforms have different schedules and ways of playing. Of course msny of them are cleary bleeding, but its not a matter of "The game dying", since DCUO is a much bigger ecosystem. On top of that, player's perceptions may vary and may not represent the actual situation of the game, so they cant be used to override official data. If there is a situation in which proper numbers cant be used, then its fair to use that as a starting evidence, otherwise its just not wise to do so.

As an example, there were posts from a few years ago saying "The population has depleted to dangerous amounts", others from little ago said "The game is on life support", yet we are still here and DCUO is still profiting as much as all other daybreak's games combined... So I think people's perceptions of dead are different and can hardly be used to achieve a concret definition.

You know, it's not a bad thing to "take a break" when you are feeling this kind of fatigue. No one, and I mean no one, should look down on your for doing so. It's a game, not a job. You don't have to overdo it.

Trust me, they started long before that, I'm not sure if the original forum's archives are still saved, but they literally started minutes after launch, and they've been pretty consistent since then. The make up of the people saying it's dead has rotated, and also waxed and waned in number, but they've always been there.

And now the ever popular
the clamp is bad, too hard, or needs to be removed thread

oh but for the sweet syrupy wash of death.